Carlsbad nuke-waste meeting reset

In this photo taken April 26, 2011, Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, left, and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, center, listen as Bill Boyle points out landmarks and geologic features from the top of Yucca Mountain in Mercury, Nev. Republicans claim this stark landscape is the nation’s best hope for a national nuclear waste dump. But with Democrats running the White House and Senate, the Yucca Mountain nuclear site has been shuttered with no chance of reopening. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
— AP

In this photo taken April 26, 2011, Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, left, and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, center, listen as Bill Boyle points out landmarks and geologic features from the top of Yucca Mountain in Mercury, Nev. Republicans claim this stark landscape is the nation’s best hope for a national nuclear waste dump. But with Democrats running the White House and Senate, the Yucca Mountain nuclear site has been shuttered with no chance of reopening. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
/ AP

Federal nuclear safety regulators have rescheduled a public meeting in Carlsbad for Nov. 18 about a proposed rule and study on the extended storage of spent nuclear fuel at retired reactor sites pending disposal at a permanent repository.

The discussion holds potential implications for the future of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on the northern edge of San Diego County that was retired in June. Nuclear waste from four decades of operations are stored on site, mostly in enclosed cooling pools, as the federal government wrestles with how to permanently safeguard the nation's growing stockpile of spent atomic-reactor fuel. Spent nuclear fuel is stored provisionally at more than 70 sites across the country.

The proposed "waste confidence" rule would replace a provision of environmental regulation vacated in 2012 by a federal appeals court. Until the court ruling, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had relied on what is known as the Waste Confidence Decision when issuing licenses for proposed plants and extending existing licenses.

Under the doctrine, the nuclear commission said it had confidence that the U.S. eventually would create a permanent repository, but the elimination of funding for a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada made that assertion less believable. The court directed the nuclear commission to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of a permanent failure by the federal government to provide a repository, and to give further consideration to the impacts of the potential for spent fuel pool leaks that may result in exposed fuel catching fire.

The study in question, known as the Waste Confidence Generic Environmental Impact Statement, does not authorize extended storage of spent fuel at reactor sites. A separate license is required for that.

NRC Public Meeting in Carlsbad

Monday, Nov. 18, 2013

Open house: 6-7 p.m. Meeting: 7-10 p.m.

Sheraton Carlsbad Resort and Spa, Grand Pacific Ballroom

5480 Grand Pacific Drive

A series of five public meetings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in locations from Ohio to California were postponed because of the October federal government shutdown, and have now been rescheduled. The commission also has added three weeks, until Dec. 20, for the public to submit formal comments.

The meeting in Carlsbad is designed to collect on-the-record comments on the proposed rule and impact statement. At an hour-long open house before the meeting, participants can speak informally with nuclear commission staff and ask question.